Editorial

2007, the tercentenary of Dieterich Buxtehude's death, is an apt moment to reflect on the unique character of his music. Even by the standards of the 17th century, Buxtehude's output is remarkable for its verve and imagination. In his keyboard praeludia he gives free rein to his improvisatory fantasy, expressing his musical individuality in pieces of unprecedented scale. A similar improvisatory flair pervades his chamber sonatas. His vocal works, by contrast, have a lyricism derived from the strophic aria, and also express doleful or bittersweet moods with striking intensity.

Yet despite the compelling power of Buxtehude's music, in many ways we glimpse his work through a glass darkly. The 19th-century lexicographer Ernst Ludwig Gerber possessed only two pieces by Buxtehude, and although both were in highly corrupt copies, he felt they allowed him to sense 'the lion from its claws'. In 2007 there are far more of Buxtehude's pieces available for performance and study, but we encounter the majority of them at second- or third-hand. Most of his music survives in sources relatively distant from the composer. Many of his organ compositions were transmitted by central German keyboardists of later generations, who tended to modernize his pieces and also make errors as they transcribed his organ tablatures into their preferred format of staff notation. As for Buxtehude's vocal music, few sources survive from his workplace of Lübeck; instead most of his vocal repertory is transmitted via the collection of the Swedish court Kapellmeister, Gustav Düben.

There is also mystery about where Buxtehude's music was performed. His organ praeludia appear to have no link with the liturgy, and it is unclear whether he played them in recitals. Some may have been played not on the organ, but on the pedal clavichords used by organists for teaching and practice. The function of his vocal music is also obscure. His job at Lübeck did not require him to write large quantities of vocal music, and few of his sacred vocal pieces are tied to a specific Sunday or liturgical occasion. It is conceivable that some were intended for private devotion or for convivial performance by a collegium musicum.

In his article in this issue Peter Holman highlights another obstacle to understanding Buxtehude: namely, the danger of applying 18th-century practices when performing his music. Performers' attitudes to metre, scoring and affect can too easily be shaped by their experience of J. S. Bach. Instead, performers need to be more aware of the 17th-century practices employed by Buxtehude. With regard to the disputed topic of choir size, knowledge of 17th-century procedures may also suggest how far Bach and his contemporaries drew on such traditions.

The other essays commissioned for this issue of Early Music aim to dispel some of the darkness surrounding Buxtehude's music. Peter Wollny reappraises the sources of Buxtehude's vocal music in the Düben collection, drawing comparisons with works of other composers amassed by Düben. He suggests where some of Buxtehude's pieces in the collection may have been performed (for instance, at the German Church in Stockholm). Most significantly, given how few sources survive from the composer's immediate circle, he argues that several of the Düben manuscripts are performing parts from Lübeck, and he newly identifies a set of parts as being in Buxtehude's hand.

The articles by Geoffrey Webber and David Yearsley offer fresh perspectives on Buxtehude's organ compositions. Webber relates Buxtehude's organ music to modal theory and to the Lutheran use of psalm-tones for such canticles as the Magnificat and Te Deum. His article will help keyboardists understand some of the melodic and harmonic idiosyncrasies of Buxtehude's writing; this is particularly useful in view of the corrupt nature of many of the keyboard sources, which often require players to decide on the most plausible reading. Webber also finds similarities between Buxtehude's praeludia and the psalm-tones, and suggests that these pieces may therefore have roots in liturgical playing. Here may be a clue to the vexed question of where Buxtehude's free organ works were performed.

David Yearsley probes the...